How Did Salt and Pepper Become the Two Most Common Seasonings?

Salt and pepper shakers

Spices have been central to human history since antiquity, influencing trade routes and economies along the way. But despite the rich array of flavors that have traveled the world, salt and pepper have emerged as the most popular seasonings in the Western world. Salt, an essential mineral, was once coveted for food preservation; pepper, a spice derived from dried peppercorn plant berries, used to be worth its weight in gold. Their popularity and ubiquitous inseparability have even led to their names being used as an adjective, as in “salt-and-pepper” hair. Here’s a look at how necessity, global trade, and culinary innovation helped salt and pepper become the two most common food seasonings.

A Dash of Salt

Salt’s journey to dinner tables is rooted in its importance to human life. The natural mineral is crucial for maintaining hydration, nerve function, and muscle control in the body, among other things. Given salt’s essential role in survival, it’s no surprise that humans developed a taste for it. Early human diets were heavy in meat and naturally provided sufficient salt. But as nomadic hunter-gatherers settled into agricultural societies and diets started including more grains, supplementing salt became important. The resource, though naturally abundant, wasn’t always easy to obtain, and it became a highly sought-after commodity throughout expanding civilizations.

In ancient Rome, the production and transport of salt evolved into a major industry. Salt was highly valued and was even used as currency, with soldiers sometimes receiving their salarium, or wages, in salt — a practice that gave rise to the English word “salary.” (Sal is the Latin word for salt.) As European empires expanded and trade routes grew, so did salt’s reach, though it largely remained a necessity of food preservation and was used as a seasoning only by the wealthy. Throughout the Middle Ages, upper-class hosts even made sure their guests of honor were seated next to elaborate, expensive salt cellars at the dining table.

A Pinch of Pepper

Around the same time, black pepper was experiencing peak popularity in medieval Europe. Native to India’s Malabar Coast, pepper was used in local cooking as early as 2000 BCE, but as trade networks expanded, the spice became highly prized in the Roman Empire, where it was as valuable as gold. Like salt, it remained a top commodity and a luxury for centuries throughout Europe due to difficulties importing it from tropical regions — as well as for its supposed medicinal properties. Black pepper was believed to aid digestion, ward off diseases, and treat ailments such as arthritis and gout.

By the mid-17th century, however, these medical beliefs were waning, and the spice trade shifted significantly as new imports such as coffee, chocolate, and tobacco entered the scene. Food preferences also changed, reflecting refinements in regional cooking, especially in France.

A New Culinary Concept

Historians trace the most likely implementation of salt and pepper into everyday cooking to the rise of French haute cuisine in the 17th century. French chefs such as François Pierre La Varenne, who contributed to the influential 1651 cookbook Le Cuisinier Francois (The French Cook), began reducing the amount of spices used in cooking, instead aiming to emphasize ingredients’ natural flavors. This style of cooking also introduced a clear separation between savory and sweet dishes in a meal. Salted foods were served first to stimulate the appetite, while sweet dishes were saved for the end to satisfy it. Pepper, one of the few spices that flavored food without overpowering the taste, didn’t work well with sweets — but it did pair well with salt, and both were relegated to a meal’s savory servings. This shift in French cuisine was a major influence throughout Europe, especially after the cookbook’s first English translation in 1652.

Everyday Essentials

Much the same way pepper proliferated in Europe via land and sea routes, the spice and its culinary uses were introduced to the Americas through European colonizers. Salt, of course, was naturally occurring, but was made more easily available in the Americas with the arrival of colonial settlers and an influx of goods from European imports. Following the American Revolution, New York and Virginia became hotspots of domestic salt production, while Massachusetts emerged as an early-19th-century pioneer in the North American pepper trade. Both were in easy abundance for the early citizens of the United States.

By the early 20th century, most U.S. homes had refrigerators, and salt’s role as a food preservative had diminished — its primary role was in cooking. After anticaking agents such as magnesium carbonate were added to salt in 1911, salt shakers became practical and widely used. Salt and pepper had long been habitually used together, so pepper shakers appeared shortly after, and the pair’s status as everyday cooking essentials was cemented.